Chapter 23: Conspiracy Theory
Earth, Sol System
"Brace!" Will yelled. Their escape pod's reverse thruster kicked in and started to slow their ascent into one of the many hangar bays throughout Pandora's Box. A Seraph fighter came straight at them on a collision then thought twice and peeled away. Their cover was holding Two seconds later the pod entered the hangar and immediately dropped to the floor. Sparks flew against the front window as the pod slowed down. Luckily the hangar was larger than normal so they supposedly had ample room for deceleration; but the group wasn't a believer.
"Hold on to something, this'll be rough!" Will and Linda got onto opposite walls, sat on the floor and braced with their legs. Kat and Chris quickly followed suit. One last glance by Will confirmed their fears. The pod slammed into the wall in a shower of sparks and screeching metal. A marine who didn't have his restraints tight enough was thrown forward but will grabbed him and put him between himself and the other seats. Once the pod stopped moving Will stood up and looked out of what remained of the front section. They were pointing towards the hangar entrance. All around Engineers were floating around repairing parts of the floor and making sure none of the Banshees and Seraph fighters that were one the bay floor were damaged.
"Okay, we need to move, fast, but is anyone injured?" All but one of the Heavy Recon shook their heads.
"I think I might have some broken ribs, but it shouldn't be that bad," he replied. Will didn't know what to do. To have him stay behind would be suicide if a large group of Covenant came to inspect, but to have him come with them would slow them down and could potentially exacerbate his wounds.
"It's your choice on what you want to do, just be warned. Staying here might be a death sentence where as coming with us could make it worse and you could slow us down if it gets worse."
"I'll throw it back to you sir, I might've just pulled some stomach muscles, but I can still fight," the H.R. replied.
"You'll come with us, we don't know what we'll be facing," Will concluded, "Okay, get your weapons and gear together, we're in a bad spot here." Will grabbed his Battle Rifle, his Magnum, and two SMGs along with a backpack full of ammo and grenades.
"I'm going to go out and do a quick check of the surroundings," Linda said.
"No, I'll do it," replied Kat. Before Linda could respond Kat started to become a shadow and then was only a slight shimmer in the air. She moved outside and disappeared from view.
"ONI techs have mastered and improved on the Elites' light refracting generators. There is almost no distortion where the person is and the thermal register is greatly reduced," Chris explained, " It's the Mark IV armor just with the active camo, it was just finished before Earth was attacked, that's why you don't have it."
"Is there anything else new?" Will asked amazed.
"Not really, just some program tweaks, and some design changes to be a little more comfortable." Linda looked him over and saw some of the changes. All of the joints seemed to have a little more padding with them and weren't as sharp. Kat reappeared and gave her report.
"I only saw engineers throughout the hangar, save for a small group of Grunts that didn't seem to interested in our pod."
"Okay, lets move then." Will and Chris took the lead and started to move around their pod. A few engineers gave quick glances at them but returned to their work. The group of four Spartans and five Marines headed to a large door directly to their left.
"Wait, I want to see what the Seraphs are like on the inside, we might be able to capture one to escape," Chris said. Will saw no harm in it and headed to the nearest Seraph. The teardrop shaped craft was larger than he originally thought. It had three circular engines protruding from the rear with a small dorsal fin extending half way down the engines. From the engines the craft bulged out into a disk like passenger area. On the front were four of the plasma cannons that the Banshees and Ghosts had. All of the Humans except for Will went inside the Seraph. Then he remembered something, like it was an air bubble that had come to the surface and popped. Scholars were had this theory that the Covenant had already visited Earth starting at the Twentieth century to modern day. He searched for "Roswell". Instantly a picture of a craft definitely non-human came up. The only thing was; it was an almost exact carbon copy of the Seraph fighter. Three engines, a dorsal fin, and circular front, everything was the same as the Seraph he was looking at in front of him. Will had a hard decision to make, if he broadcasted the find it would tell the Covenant that their ships had been infiltrated. But if there was some unknown data from the five hundred year old Seraph that they could use either for their technology or against the Covenant they needed to know.
"Chris, do you have the information you need? Yes or no?"
"Yeah, I've got video of it and-."
"Transfer it to me now, the fleet has just got some new info. I'll explain later."
"Ok, it's done." Will instantly opened up a channel on FLEETCOM: 7 and broadcasted.
"This is Spartan- Oh-Four-Three aboard the Covenant Planet Killer Pandora's Box. Upon infiltrating the vessel, we have gotten important information on the Covenant fighter, nicknamed 'Seraph'…"
Rear Admiral Atonson looked down to his main comm. terminal aboard heavy carrier Redemption. The only reason he was paying attention to it was because a Spartan was hailing every single Human vessel around Earth.
"Upon infiltrating the vessel, we have gotten important information on the Covenant fighter, nicknamed 'Seraph', Covenant name, unknown. I'm streaming video that was taken by Spartan- Nine-Five-Two, a Spartan-III, only moments ago. The Seraph seems to have three structural weaknesses. The first is where the engines join the cabin area. The second is a heat exhaust under the engines, that, if hit, would cause an explosive decompression. The third is the main cockpit veiwport, which has unreinforced sides, potentially causing an explosive decompression."
Atonson looked at the holo-projector and saw a Seraph float around and then three orange squares showing the weak areas.
"After further examination I found a haunting similarity to an alien vessel found almost, to the year, five hundred years ago in Roswell, in the former state of New Mexico. The Covenant has been here before. Harvest was not our first encounter with them." The Spartan paused, the Rear Admiral knew why too. Atonson looked out and watched the battle, except something was wrong. The Covenant had stopped their attack. Some of the crew around him spun around in their chairs and were looking out the main window.
"We started this war. American fighter planes shot down, and killed the first contact with the Covenant, which they took as an act of war. I am going to broadcast live video feed of the Covenant Planet Killer Pandora's Box as we assault and take control of it. Once we have control, we will be transmitting every piece of data that we can find to UNSC vessels. Stand-by for transmissions, Oh-Four-Three, over and out."